People want to go on religious pilgrimages to spiritual places in the
springtime, when the April rains have soaked deep into the dry ground to water
the flowers’ roots; and when Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, has helped new
flowers to grow everywhere; and when you can see the constellation Aries in the
sky; and when the birds sing all the time. Some people go to other countries,
but many people in England choose to go to the city of Canterbury in
southeastern England to visit the remains of Thomas Becket, the Christian martyr
who had the power of healing people.

Bifel that, in that seson on a day,

20In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay

Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage

To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,

At night was come in-to that hostelrye

Wel nyne and twenty in a companye,

Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle

In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle,

That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde;

The chambres and the stables weren wyde,

And wel we weren esed atte beste.

30And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,

So hadde I spoken with hem everichon,

That I was of hir felawshipe anon,

And made forward erly for to ryse,

To take our wey, ther as I yow devyse.

One spring, when I was making my own humble pilgrimage to Canterbury, I stayed
at the Tabard Inn in the city of Southwark. While I was there, a group of
twenty-nine people who were also making the same pilgrimage arrived at the
hotel. None of them had really known each other before, but they had met along
the way. It was a pretty diverse group of people from different walks of life.
The hotel was spacious and had plenty of room for all of us. I started talking
with these people and pretty soon fit right into their group. We made plans to
get up early and continue on the journey to Canterbury together.